Hey everyone! Wow it has been a while! So much has happened since January! I have dove in to my last semester as a senior before I graduate and have honestly been able to say, I love what I do and will be doing the rest of my life. For truly the first time, I love my classes and the material so much. It is such a nice assurance that the major you chose was the right one. I am so ready to graduate and start my next step, it is so beyond time. I am going to be one happy proud UT alumni female Materials Science Engineer! I love my UT! Let me go ahead and dive into these last few months through the best way, pictures!
So a few days after my last blog post, Morgan, Mom, and I attended the pink bridal show in Knoxville and had an absolute blast! I felt so honored to wear this badge also! (mirror image camera made the words backwards, I wan't holding it wrong)
We saw two of the offered runway shows and ate lots of samples and signed up for a lot of goody bags!
This semester has been ridden with countless hours of senior project work which really isn't fun at all but I have enjoyed being apart of an entire project run by our group. Above is a pellet presser of our ball-milled Titania, Alumina, and Potassia samples we prepared which are ready for high temperature x-ray diffraction (my specialty)! God knew what he was doing by sticking me with this group project!
Of course I went to the spring job fair and gained a lot of employment/professional people skills. Plus I look so grown up and business-like in this picture it is so cool!
Since Cody is in Chattanooga and I am here in Knoxville, we see each other most weekends and he truly makes it so special. It is hard not seeing each other more often but it is night and day difference from seeing each other one day every two and a half months for 4 years. So I don't complain in the least. It feels like Christmas all of the time and when I see him it is like opening the best present. He is so special guys, I got a keeper!
We love to explore on our date night weekends and we stumbled into Trader Joes for the first time one weekend and tried brown rice sushi! It was SOOOO good!
At then end of January Cody and I went to an open house at our reception site and got these cute little favors. If they weren't so expensive this would be a great idea!
Additional parking out back of our reception building.
The beautiful fireplace outside!
Excuse the hair on that windy night, Cody wanted to take my picture in front of the purple bridge!
Outside of the restaurant.
Other side of Calhoun's
Here is the floor plan to our little place we can call our own.
So about a week and a half ago Cody calls me up and asks if we could close on the deal for the next 15 monnths of our favorite apartments in Chattanooga. He found this great deal and wanted to jump at the opportunity. We always planned for Cody to buy our place in March and move in in May which is exactly what we have done. (Everything is turned off until May 1st when Cody officially moves in) Let me tell you what it was quite a surprise when I realized I really would live in Chattanooga to start off. I would have sworn it would have been Knoxville. We even had our apartment of choice picked out there too. But it is amazing to see God's plans because he knew all along that this would be where we would end up. Cody has a really good job opportunity here in Chattanooga and I don't so we have to go where we are guaranteed an income first off and don't get me wrong, I am a little sad (maybe a lot) that we won't be in Knoxville but I will learn to love this opportunity and will be fine since I have Cody. I have really grown to love it. But I trust God's plans and I hope to be back in Knoxville some day. Also officially declaring residency in Chattanooga narrows my job search down significantly and does in fact make me a little nervous. I just have to walk by faith and not sight for that one.
One of the first things I did was bring down my 'R' rug to make it ours. And I am really proud of my new last name initial.
Welcome to the tour of our place. I will do this again once we have it furnished.
The two pictures above are our kitchen. It is so open and spacious with updated appliances and nice cabinets. This is my favorite part of the place especially since Cody and I are big cooks!
Here is our spacious pantry which is actually rare to have at all in most apartments we have found.
We have a laundry room! Can you believe it! Furnished with the washer and dryer too!
Here is our little nook by the door.
This is our den/living room.
Our very very first piece of decoration. A picture of us from two Christmas' ago. I love pictures and you bet we will have them everywhere.
Here is our nice porch which we will hopefully have two rocking chairs to put out there. (Cody loves rocking chairs so much)
Here is the guest bedroom which is going to be our office. (guests sleep on the couch, sorry)
Along with our guest bathroom.
And guest closet.
Here is the master bedroom!
Master closet!
And master bathroom (yes the guest bathroom is strangely nicer)
Cody bought and assembled three bar stools since we have an island instead of a table. He did an amazing job building them! And hey they swivel! Cody is awesome, everything we bought we got for a super great deal and it has saved us a bunch of money! It's kind of fun saving money! I can't wait to eat pizza every night! (no i'm serious, I have this unexplainable love for pizza. Nothing can to Pizza huts new cheezy stuffed garlic knots pizza!)
The very first piece of furniture! The most cloud-like couch I have ever felt! Thank you Jamie!
Oh and the back story on the blanket and pillow, I found them 3 years ago and bought them in dreaming of our first place together and have saved them ever since! Now for the occasion of just purchasing our first bed (king sized bed!) they will go right on top! We will be getting our bed delivered on good Friday!!
As you can see and imagine, we are excited out of our minds and Cody is so proud of himself as I am so proud of him! He has done so much research into finding the perfect apartment for us in the right city and has taken so much personal initiative into making sure everything on my checklist was met.
Please excuse the billion of pictures of the family that I have taken. Cody and I were very excited to show them the place for the first time so a selfie stick was in order.
(Oh and they loved it!!)
My family <3 <3
(Cody didn't want to take this picture but he was a good sport and smiled)
I cannot believe how God has blessed us. I am so happy! I can't believe we will be embarking on our first year of marriage in this 'home'. I don't know about the statistics but I believe that this first year of marriage will be nothing short of perfect because I have my Cody!
This is the delicious protein filled yogurt I have chosen for my bridal shower coming up! Morgan is throwing it for me and I am SO excited! It will be my first bridal shower!!
The other day when Cody visited me we toured the VOL shop at UT and I found this handing on the wall and let me tell you what, the second my graduation is over this sucker is going on my car, front and back. I will be one proud alum for all of the hard work sweat and tears these last 5 years have caused me.
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As far as wedding planning goes, this week, spring break, has been a week of massive planing. First of all, each day I have been working on designing my wedding invitations. Tomorrow I am going for another wedding hair and make up trial and hopefully this place is the one! I have been shopping for honeymoon/beach clothes with a little luck. There are so many cute bathing suits out that I just want them all haha! I have picked up my last few items at David's Bridal so I am set there and ready for my first fitting in a few weeks. I HAVE FINALLY FOUND MY WEDDING SHOES! I am so thrilled I finally found the absolute perfect ones! They are flats so my bridesmaids must wear flats too because I am rather short and don't want to be completely over-towered.From this point on in my spring break, this weekend Cody and I will be meeting with our DJ (we have made our long song list and I hope everyone likes the choices!). We will be meeting with our videographer, and Sunday, ending the last day of spring break, will be my shower! The color scheme is silver and pink! Right up my alley!
Also to mention, on Thrusday Morgan and I will be seeing the midnight showing of Allegiant and Friday is our mom's birthday! She is so amazing and deserves so much on this big birthday! We have so many surprises up our sleeves for her! We will start off with chocolate chip pancakes made by me! Followed by a long picnic hike at Ijams nature center! (Morgan and I branched out to make our tradition including mom) and then we will see Zootopia (mom's choice) it looks so cute! And to finish off Gigi is making moms favorite, steak and potatoes with mom's favorite green beans along with multiple other surprises for her throughout the day;). This spring break so far has been awesome and I can't wait to post more about how the rest of the week went shortly!
Love,
Kayla Dyar (Raborn)
79 more days until the wedding and 50 until the end of the semester!!!!
And here's a little funny to make your day a little better. But seriously! This happens every. single. time
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